


Nascentes Morimur

by bizzylizzy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Gen, Platonic Soulmates, Terminal Illnesses, Won't die without you, shameless attempt to make people cry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 23:31:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bizzylizzy/pseuds/bizzylizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Itachi knows what it's like to almost lose someone. Shisui knows what it's like to feel someone slowly slipping away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rain and Wine

It’s an awful back sliding trap that happens every so often. It happens after bad break-ups or almost relationships or when a certain someone comes crawling into the apartment. It happens on weak days of pain and confusion. On stronger days of joy and contentment. It happens on long days and short days, and usually after the rain. It happens because it is easy, familiar, and the most uncomplicated relationship he’s ever had.

As long as he doesn’t try to define it by the world’s definitions.

Today the reasons are simple: it’s raining, he just broke up with his girlfriend of four months, he’s depressingly middle aged by now, and his cousin showed up with a bottle of cheap wine.

“It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

Itachi makes a noise pretending to be affirmative and keeps his head on Shisui’s chest, turned sideways to look out the window at the rain. His ear rests above Shisui’s heart, crushed close enough Shisui feels it with every heartbeat and breath. His hair is still damp from the rain where it tickles Shisui’s chin. It’s neatly braided and curls comfortable between them.

“I’m awful with dates.”

“Of all kinds,” Itachi agrees, not drunk but he doesn’t ever have to be. They spent an hour in the park, walking in the rain and chasing eachother around in a way they’re much too old for now. They’ve been too old for a lot of things for a while now, but that never seems to stop things from happening. Shisui gives his head a small twitching shake and rests his cheek against Itachi’s hair.

They’re tucked up into the window seat, sleepy and sated as Shisui from time to time sips at the wine Itachi brought. Itachi, slightly smaller, sits in front of Shisui, blanket and Shisui’s arms pulled around him as he leans back and watches the rain on the window. One knee sits under Shisui’s. Shisui’s other leg crooks over Itachi’s calf. Itachi wears some of Shisui’s clothes, his skeletal frame painfully exaggerated as the shirt falls off his shoulder and the pants legs billow around his legs.

Itachi’s thumbs rhythmically strokes the insides of Shisui’s wrists, rough calluses catching on the skin with delightful shiver sensations. His fingers trail on the outside of Shisui’s arms, sometimes sneaking up to rub his thumb or tickle his palm, or just slide through his fingers as the stillness sets in, or Itachi begins to really fall asleep. 

“You’re mean.” Shisui shifts his head to whisper the words into Itachi’s ear. Itachi tips his head a little, sliding his ear across Shisui’s bare chest. For a moment he doesn’t speak, then he peels his ear from Shisui’s chest and turns his head to look at Shisui. 

“I’m honest. Life’s too short for anything else.” It’s true. Painfully like the sharpness of Itachi’s bones pressing back into Shisui’s body. Shisui shifts his hands, reaching for the sticky wine glass with one and reaching up to hold Itachi’s bare shoulder with the other. He does it to feel the tendon’s shift beneath the skin. He does it to feel the warmth and remind himself Itachi is this. This creature of bone and tendon pressed so lightly against him. Shisui lifts the wine glass to his mouth, and Itachi intercepts it with a touch to Shisui’s pinkie. Shisui dutifully shifts the glass, angling it enough for Itachi to get the sip he wants before he taps Shisui’s pinkie again, and Shisui is allowed to have have his drink.

“You’re spoiled,” Shisui grumbles. Itachi’s body twitches and he chuckles. It’s a low, welcome sound, and Shisui leans over to set the glass back down. Itachi leans companionably with him, letting his head flop to the side. 

“I am greatly loved and indulged,” Itachi corrects as they right themselves and Itachi shifts around again. Shisui opens his arms and the blanket, letting Itachi wiggle around like a toddler before settling in much the same position as before, only this time with his legs drawn up.

“It’s basically the same thing,” Shisui protests as he settles his arms back around Itachi. He sees his cousin smile in the window, and then Itachi turns his face to look at Shisui.

“Trust me. This is much better.” Itachi’s hands catch the blanket and pull it more tightly around them. Shisui settles his arms back around Itachi’s hollow chest and take advantage of the angle to kiss Itachi’s forehead, sideways lips in a gentle brush. 

“This is all going to stop one day, isn’t it?” Shisui asks, reaching out to feel Itachi’s thigh. It feels thinner than it looks, and Itachi twitches it away.

“Mm, the day you put me in the ground.” Itachi bows his head a little. Shisui pulls his hand up to tug on Itachi’s braid, pulling it out of the way before kissing the nape of Itachi’s neck.

“You’re just going to blow away on the wind,” Shisui mutters into Itachi’s skin.

“Don’t worry so much.” The blanket pulls tighter.

Shisui lifts his head and looks at the curve of Itachi’s ear. He can barely see the stark line of Itachi’s jaw and the hollow of his cheek. If he tips his head to the side he’ll see Itachi’s eyelashes--thick and black as always. Those never change.

“It’s hard not to.” Shisui rubs his hand up Itachi’s side so they can both feel his fingers on Itachi’s ribs. Itachi takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“I was supposed to die before twenty-two, but I’m still here.” Abruptly, Itachi twists around, releasing the blanket. He turns all the way around, throwing a leg over Shisui’s and off the window seat, the other under him as he raises up a little to look Shisui in the face.

“And you were supposed to die when you were seventeen,” Itachi recalls with dark eyes and chapped lips drawn down in a negative shape. “I still remember breathing for you.”

Mouth-to-mouth isn’t a thing you’re supposed to do anymore, but back then it was. Shisui remembers the cold press of Itachi’s clammy lips over his own and the painful pounding against his chest. Itachi suddenly fists and hand and thumps it into Shisui’s chest in a weak parody of the life giving blows. 

“I know what it’s like to think you’re going to lose someone.” Itachi speaks calmly, soft and gentle as he pulls his legs under him. “I remember what it’s like to think you’re going to spend the rest of your life alone.” The words should be impassioned or bitter or something, but they’re only soft as Itachi smears his palm over Shisui’s lips and then cups Shisui’s cheek, one finger curling against his ear. Itachi presses his cool hand against Shisui’s arm chest, left pectoral, right over the heart that beats strongly now.

“So don’t think...” Itachi presses hard against his hand, rising to his knees. “Don’t ever think I won’t fight my hardest to keep you from facing that.” Itachi cups Shisui’s face in both of his hands. They’re small hands, really. Itachi’s always been so delicate, and Shisui’s always relied on him so. Shisui bows his head and tips it to kiss the beginning of Itachi’s wrist as Itachi drops his heavy head onto Shisui’s. His braid thumps against Shisui’s head, slides across his shoulder. Shisui feels the prickle of tears in his eyes. He reaches up and wraps his arms around Itachi’s waist, trying to ignore the way the fabric bunches and the way the bones press against him. 

Itachi’s hands slide back, curling through Shisui’s hair and then locking around his neck. Itachi drops his head to the juncture of Shisui’s shoulder and neck, lashes brushing the skin as Shisui hugs his cousin tighter. 

“I won’t leave you here alone,” Itachi promises, words muffled almost past coherency in Shisui’s skin.

“Not yet.”


	2. Sic transit gloria mundi.

The saddest thing is not the loss of motor control. It’s not the loss of weight or hair that Itachi eventually just cuts from his head and invests in multi colored knit hats. All of that is painful and nauseating to Shisui at his very core, but the thing that he thinks might break him before this is all over is degradation of Itachi’s mind.

Itachi’s marvelously fast, twisted, precocious mind that always thinks in logical steps and flashes through them. Shisui won scholarships in track, but he always admired Itachi’s speed. Itachi’s mind could dance circles around him, poking and teasing at tugging at Shisui’s logic as he led him in a twisting dance all around the world. Itachi has always been quick to note patterns and recognize the most obscure sayings or sights. He’d make everyone laugh by recognizing Shisui’s sneeze in a crowded room, or recognizing him at a family gathering by a shoulder poking out from behind a door frame.

Itachi has been in the hospital for twenty days when he looks up at Shisui with alarm. Normally when Shisui visits Itachi smiles--no matter how tired. Normally he says something with eyes or hands, and Shisui feels a great heaving despair in his chest, wondering that he should be made to watch Itachi dwindle like this, and that their last days should be spent in such a parody of their former lives. But, normally, Itachi is glad to see him, and Shisui can always tell.

But this day, this twenty-first day of Itachi’s interminable hospital stay, he looks at Shisui only with alarm, his brows creasing as his hands fist in the hospital blankets.

“You’re not a doctor--or a nurse. You’re in the wrong room.” It would be better if these words were not such a question and Itachi were sure of banishing Shisui. Instead it’s a query with a weakness to it that cuts just as deeply as the inability to recognize Shisui. Itachi swallows, adam’s apple bobbing, and Shisui sees Itachi for a moment as Itachi must suddenly see Shisui. As strangers. As men and not as boys who have grown up together.

Itachi is not as pretty as he used to be. He’s thirty-two now. This is not so old, and Shisui’s almost thirty-six with a kid and a failed marriage. He never could keep things like that together. Still, Itachi holds an austere simplicity in his emaciated state. He’s been on a feeding tube for this stay, and his pale skin stretches over the bones of his face. Without hair, his face looks oddly disproportionate. He could have gotten a wig, but instead insisted on the absurd hats. He tugs at it now, self conscious in front of a stranger. There are lines around his mouth, in his brow, etched in the skin on his throat. His lips are cracked and his eyes have half moon circles under them like bruises. Itachi looks too pale and blue to be attractive. He looks like death with his IVs and electrodes and oxygen and everything else. To a stranger, he looks like a dead thing rudely clinging to life. To Shisui, he looks like love and life embodied.

And now he does not recognize Shsiui’s face.

Shisui swallows and steps for the bed.

“I’m just here to visit,” Shisui admits, unable to ask if Itachi really doesn’t recognize him. He wants to leave, but he knows better than to waste what little time they have left. If it’s this bad, how long is left? What will come after this? Is this just a glitch? A small hiccup that will resolve in an hour or a day or with the next batch of medication? Itachi eyes Shisui with an animal wariness, like a dog afraid of being hit. 

Shisui pulls the chair up to the side of the bed and points to the book on the bedside table, swallowing. He’s been reading through it for Itachi, since his eyes are often too tired to read by himself and they have ironically run out of important things to say at twilight sinks in. One would think that these days would be fill with the rush of unspoken words and regrets. Of things they had left to share later, or memories they had forgotten to share. There is none of that. No rush. No fumbling. Shisui doesn’t know if it’s because of Itachi, or how they speak through touch, or that they’ve known each other all these years, but everything has been said. There are no regrets left to speak of save that this is all ending, and that is something tangible in the air that never needs to be said.

Shisui wishes he could find words to fill the silence, but holding Itachi’s cool hand in his says enough. A twitch of finger conveys that Itachi will miss this. His fingernails digging into Shisui’s hand say that he doesn’t want to go, not yet, but he’s tired. He’s so _tired_ and it _hurts_ and can Shisui understand that? Is this a forgivable offense, this hating to leave but at the same time a desire to finally be free of the indignities and pain of a dying body? A kiss on the forehead conveys a love shared. A tip of the head thank you. Everything is stripped down to the most basic forms.

Or it was. Itachi now stares at Shisui with distrust and confusion. Who is this man? Why is he here?

And why does he look like he’s going to cry?

“Were you reading this?” Shisui asks, reaching for the book.

“Don’t!” The words are a weak snap. Itachi coughs and Shisui jumps. “Don’t.” Itachi takes a breath.

“My friend is reading that to me,” Itachi insists, and Shisui’s heart sinks and Itachi’s eyes cloud, lips frowning. “It’s his book to read to me.” Itachi stares at Shisui, daring him to protest in some way as most people do when faced with Itachi’s logic, but Shisui understands it. He’s always understood it, and the sentiment is appreciated.

He just wishes Itachi knew that.

Shisui smiles and retracts his hand. He tries to touch Itachi’s hand on the covers. Itachi twitches it away in a sharp motion that must hurt. Shisui freezes, for a moment caught with the amplified noises of the room banging into his ears and slamming into his head. 

“I understand,” Shisui says. He smiles. Tears are gathering in his eyes and he wants to laugh as Itachi simply stares with his sunken, bruised looking eyes. 

“I understand.” And he wishes Itachi believed him.

Or would believe him again one day.

The doctors say it’s an unfortunate side effect. It might go away, or it could be permanent. It could be the drugs or an extension of the illness’s attack on the brain. It’s hard to tell. Most people die from organ failure before this point. Most people don’t make it this long, and they’re writing papers on it. Itachi’s going to be immortalized in medical history for not remembering Shisui’s face. Shisui just smiles and thanks them, bowing repeatedly.

It’s another ten days before Itachi lets Shisui continue the book. “I guess he’s not coming back,” Itachi admits as he leans back against the pillows. He doesn’t look devastated, only mournful and sulky as he sighs and resigns himself. He lets Shisui help him sip apple juice that day. 

Shisui silently picks up the book. He begins to read where he left off and Itachi closes his eyes to listen. Shisui reads until visiting hours are over and his voice is hoarse. Itachi simply opens his eyes as the nurse pokes her head in and says it’s time to go home. Shisui nods, and Itachi turns his head, serious.

“Thank you. Are you coming again tomorrow?”

Shisui smiles and nods. “I am.”

“Good.” Itachi nods as if this is as he suspected, but confirmation is ideal. He smiles a little, then looks at his hands in a dreamy, concerned way that Shisui is beginning to think means Itachi has forgotten what he is thinking, which is heartbreaking and almost unimaginable.

They finish the book in three days. Itachi’s pain medication is now maxed out. That’s pretty much all he’s getting right now. Things to make him comfortable. The doctors say every day they’re amazed he’s doing so well. They thought he’d be dead within a week of being admitted. Shisui just nods to all of this. It doesn’t seem so amazing to him.

“Did he send you?” Itachi asks as Shisui closes the book. “My friend, did he send you?”

Shisui stares at the book cover and wonders how to answer that. He almost tells Itachi that he is that friend, and he can quote any memory Itachi wishes to confirm that, but the words won’t roll off his tongue. “Yes, he did.”

A look of cat-like satisfaction spreads across his face. “I thought so. He’s mad at me, you know, for getting myself put in the hospital again.” Shisui feels his heart wrench and drop, twisting down into his stomach.

“Why would he be mad about that?” He manages to ask.

“Because he doesn’t like to be reminded how sick I am,” Itachi shrugs. “I don’t...I don’t really remember what I did this time, but it’s must have been something I did.” Itachi stops to breathe. “My parents and Sasuke haven’t been to see me either.”

Shisui wants to remind Itachi had parents died when he was twenty-five, and Sasuke died in a drunk driving accident when Itachi was thirty--ironically right after Sasuke had finally gotten out of rehab and been sober for two years. That was when Itachi began to go downhill. That was when he couldn’t simply hold on for Shisui’s sake, and his resolve wavered. Eroded. Gave in.

“I’m not going to die.”

When he looked at Shisui in the mornings and said _I’m tired._

“They’re always saying that, you know, that I’m going to die soon.”

_I think I’m ready. (Can you let me go?)_

“If I were going to die,” Itachi confides as he stares straight ahead at the door. “Shisui would be here with me.” Itachi looks at Shisui and he smiles. It’s a shadow of his normal smile. Shisui reaches for Itachi’s hand and this time Itachi does not pull away. Shisui bows his head and cups Itachi’s hand in his, feeling the flutter of a pulse as Itachi leans back into the pillow, staring dreamily at the doorway, which remains empty.

With no book, Itachi fills the silence himself over the next few days. He tells Shisui about himself. About all the memories they share, how they grew up together, how Shisui could never keep a lover, because they were always jealous of Itachi. Shisui realizes, as he listens, that all the memories stop around Itachi’s twenty-second year, the time when he was in the hospital for treatment for four months . Shisui was out of country, furious and unable to get back. Itachi had come out of that when everyone had said he wouldn’t. Evidently Itachi’s mind still operated on its own logic, picking the best match from his scattered memories and ordering everything around them.

“I think it irritated him a lot--not that he would have wanted us to not be how we were, but that everyone else had such a hard time with it. Our family understood it, but they’d grown up with us, you know?” Itachi’s thin fingers trace idly on Shisui’s wrist, and these words ramble, disconnected and full of great pauses. This is the end, Shisui thinks as he looks at Itachi’s off color face. This is the end, and Itachi doesn’t even realize it as his finger idly draws Shisui’s name into Shisui’s wrist. 

“You look like him.” This as Shisui sits on the bed and is allowed to hold Itachi’s hands in his, looking at the bruises with concern. They don’t hurt, Itachi promised. “Older, but you look kind of like him. Is that why he sent you?” Shisui just nods and lays his forehead to Itachi’s hands, half decided that this is a mercy. Itachi does not know he’s dying. It will be painless and dignified. It will be without fear or anger or resignation. It won’t be anything.

But at least Itachi won’t be afraid.

Shisui knows they’ve reached the final stages when he’s allowed to stay the night. Itachi’s retelling of their life becomes more disjointed, and he replays his favorite memories on a loop. Itachi tells Shisui how he almost drowned and how Itachi pulled him from the water. He tells Shisui how they tried dating when they got out of highschool, and how awkward and gross it was, but how much he _needed_ to try it, just to be sure he couldn’t fill that role for Shisui. He tells Shisui again and again and again how much he _loves_ him, confessing to a stranger with words what Shisui only ever received in touches and glances before. Those stumbling phrases and cliche terms might mean less if Shsiui didn’t know how to link them to touch and memory. They mean the world to him.

“I’m right here, ‘Tachi.” Shisui speaks one late afternoon as Itachi has just tried to explain how Shisui always held his hand when they crossed the street, even as teens and twenty-somethings. “I’m right _here_.” Shisui holds the frail hand in his, afraid of crushing it. Itachi turns his head and looks at Shisui.

Itachi frowned. “I know. Why do you think I was talking to you?” Itachi looks troubled. “Did you leave?” Because Itachi _knows_ he’s missing time here and there, but he doesn’t know why.

“No.” Shisui now wants to cry more than ever, but he hadn’t yet. He won’t yet. “No, I’ve been here this whole time.” Itachi looks satisfied and starts to tell Shisui about his other friend--Kisame (whose past life caught up with him five years ago). As Itachi remembers phantoms as reality, Shisui realizes he will be the only one left. Sasuke could have understood most of this pain, but Sasuke is dead. Kisame could have at least understood a fraction of it.

Now Shisui will shoulder it alone.

“Shisui. Shisui?”

It’s night--late and dark. Shisui wakes on his little cot and reaches out blindly for Itachi’s hand. He catches at Itachi’s hand in the darkness. He hears the ragged breathing and lifts up. The room is light only softly, and Itachi has to sleep sitting up because of his breathing trouble.

“Shisui, when are you coming?” Itachi asks, breathless. He sounds like a fretting child, anxious and annoyed. Itachi coughs. His next breath is deep and gasping. Shisui grips Itachi’s hand.

“I’m _here_ ,” Shisui insists. “Itachi, I’m _right here_.” He gives Itachi’s hand as hard a squeeze as he dares. “You know I am.” On some level, some deep level, Itachi must know this. It’s too awful to contemplate him not knowing. It’s too miserable to think that Itachi might not realize Shisui’s here for these final moments.

“Need you,” Itachi mumbles. He takes another gasping coughing breath. Shisui sits up. He touches Itachi’s face, which is sweaty. Itachi coughs and gasps again. Shisui holds Itachi’s hand tighter, but there’s no acknowledgement. No twitch of pain. Only a deep, gasping breath that makes Itachi cough.

“I’m here,” Shisui promises. He grips Itachi’s hand and lowers his forehead to Itachi’s shoulder. “I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.” He repeats the words over and over, until Itachi subsides into sleep again. His breathing evens out, and Shisui stays awake, holding his hand and waiting.

The next day is filled with silent moments and the awful choking gasps. Itachi’s eyes stay closed and the nurses calmly explain this is the end. Itachi’s body is finally giving out. This time, they say with certainty, he won’t last the day. His body is literally shutting down. They come in from time to time. Someone brings Shisui juice. Someone offers to get the hospital chaplain. Shisui shakes his head and watches Itachi’s face. 

Surely, before this is over, there must be one more moment of lucidity. Itachi will open his eyes and know who Shsiui is just for a moment, and it will be enough. Shisui needs Itachi to know that he was there. That he stuck out his vigil until the end and didn’t miss a moment of it. He needs it.

There are no words now. Only silence. It strikes Shisui as oddly dignified as the withered being in front of him dies in stages. His lips are blue now, and Shisui wonders if Itachi’s brain is dead now. He eventually leaves his place beside the bed, head heavy with unshed tears and rests it beside Itachi’s. He keeps a hold on Itachi’s hand, which feels cold. Rubbery. Itachi smells like a hospital. There’s no long hair to nose through or touch. It’s just the bare lines of cadaverous flesh. Shisui leans his head on Itachi’s shoulder, and then he begins to cry. Then he is sure Itachi is dead, even if the body is still struggling to stay alive.

Itachi is dead.

Technically Uchiha Itachi dies at 5:36 on a Saturday evening. The doctor calls it, the body is cleaned, Shisui goes home. He arranges the funeral and cleans up his apartment. He alerts those who need to be alerted of Itachi’s passing, and it is then he finds them. The texts sent to and old e-mail as he tried to find contact information for old friends who might remember Itachi fondly. The words that started over ten days ago kept coming until three days ago. Funny things like _I miss you-I love you-Freaky guy reading to me looks like you._ Itachi’s hands have been painful to move for the past year, but there are these messages to Shisui about himself and Itachi. Short snatches of thought in text form of the last days.

_I think I’m dying this time. Can you come?_

_I’m scared._

_I need you._

_I’m sorry._

_Please._

_YOU PROMISED ME._

_You said you would be there._

_you swore._

_Shisui._

_Please._

_I’m scared._

_I don’t want to die._

_I’m not dying without you._

_I hate you._

_What did I do?_

_Shisui, please answer me, okay?_

_Please._

_Please._

_Please._

_Don’t let me die alone._

Shisui’s hands smash down onto the keyboard. 

_“I know you’re here. I know you can hear me. I KNOW IT.”_

Shisui raises his head and looks at the sound bite Itachi had somehow sent. He has always been smart. maybe he talked someone else into helping him.

_“You’ll be here when I need you.”_ A breath. A gasp. _“You’ll come, won’t you? It’s hard. It hurts. Godsdamn, Shisui, it’s hurts so bad right now.”_ A weak laugh. A whimper. Something like a sob.

_“I’m waiting for you._

_“I’m waiting for you, okay?”_ The words fade in and out, growing softer and weaker. The next are only a mumble.

_“I’ll meet you at the river.”_

_I want to go to the river once last time._ Itachi said that the week before everything went to hell. Shisui took him. They went to the hospital afterwards, but before they sat on the banks for hours while Itachi cried and Shisui held him and the world they knew finally came to an end. They stayed there until Itachi looked up at the darkening sky and said: _Okay, I’m ready. I’m ready now._

The recording plays on a loop. Shisui presses his hands into his eyes, the sounds of Itachi’s voice are drowned out in his own noises. His own crying, his own despair and brokeness and everything Itachi _could not share_ in those last days. It was meant to be shared. It’s not a thing meant for one person. It took two to make it, and now there is only one.

_You’ll come, won’t you?_


	3. Sidestory: The Letter "L"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff is always fun. That is all this is. Fluff.

Itachi lays on the bed, completely limp and listless. Lassitude came to mind. Languor. Languishing. Lamentable.

“‘L’ is a good letter for you.”

Itachi lifts his arm and cracks an eye open. “Itachi brought to you today by the letter ‘L’?”

“And the color blue,” Shisui adds as he leans down and put a knee on the bed. Itachi’s chest jerks, maybe the suggestion of a laugh as he twitches his fingers. 

“And the number…” Itachi trails off and Shisui leans across the bed, reaching. Itachi slowly raises an arm, crooking it and tensing. Shisui grabs it and pulls, sliding Itachi across the bed and into him as he lays down, firming Itachi’s limp shape into something better with the contours of his body.

“The number two.”

“Because two is better than one?” Itachi suggests as he leans back into Shisui. 

“Two is always better than one,” Shisui agrees, taking the time to carefully align them a little better, because Itachi is just a little smaller and thinner and fits just right into all Shisui’s dips and turns like a jigsaw if he’s careful. If Itachi’s not too sore to feel like one being. 

“Not always,” Itachi qualifies in an absent way as Shsiui’s arm sneak around him and Itachi’s hands catch at Shisui’s, tucking it into his chest. Shisui nuzzles aside Itachi’s hair with his nose, finding the warm skin of Itachi’s neck and the fine tickle of hairs. He breathes in deeply and then lets it out slowly, earning a shiver from Itachi as they settle into stillness.

“This is better,” Shisui clarifies. 

“Better than what?” Itachi already sounds sleepy, but he sweeps his thumb over Shisui’s knuckles.

“Better than anything.” Shisui shifts and gets his free arm under Itachi’s neck. Itachi lifts a little, leans back, and once again settles. 

“First time anyone’s ever told me I’m good in bed,” Itachi muses. He feels too warm, but he’s sick--really sick, not the nebulous Itachi kind of sick. It’s just a cold, but it’s a production of intensity.

“But I’m the only one you’ve ever been in bed with, right?” Shisui tugs on Itachi’s shirt. “Right?’ Itachi just kind of grins, and Shisui feels teased and slightly alarmed. He rolls Itachi over and hovers over him. “Itachi?”

Itachi giggles, which sounds demented. Shisui gives him a shake. “Come on Itachi…” Shisui whines. “Don’t tease.”

“O-only Kisame,” Itachi promises with tears in his eyes. 

“WHAT?” Shisui’s voice cracks. He shakes Itachi again, eliciting another giggle and a cough. The images that flash through his mind are disturbing. “Aw, c’mon, you didn’t…” Itachi looks so pleased with himself, Shsiui rakes a tickling hand up Itachi’s side. Itachi yelps, body jerking to the side as he gasps, laughing as Shisui tickles his other side, getting a cough in the laughter. Itachi tries to grab Shisui’s hands, hands waving madly around as they try to grab and hold and defend all at once.

Itachi gives one, great, mighty cough. Shisui catches Itachi’s hands as his body spasms, his head thrown back, face twisted in a grimace of pain for a moment. Shisui yanks him upright with his hands, grabbing for Itachi’s shirt for a better hold, then around his back to pull him in close as he coughs again, chest rattling unpleasantly against Shisui as he grips Shisui’s fingers tight enough to hurt.

Shisui holds Itachi still as Itachi takes deep breaths, in and out. Slow and deep and then he closes his eyes, lashes brushing Shisui’s ear as he breathes out slowly. He turns his face into Shisui’s neck, hot breath and burning skin pressed tight as Shisui just holds on, feeling Itachi’s heartbeat and barely remembering how they got to this moment.

“It was when you were away in Portugal,” Itachi breathes the words out, and Shisui could swear his skin soaks them in instead of them travelling through his ears. Portugal. When Shisui was frustrated and they were fighting to badly it had bordered on hate most days. When Shisui broke down and blamed Itachi for always ending up in the hospital. For not taking enough care.

For not being the person Shisui could spend the rest of his life with. A life with Itachi was a full one, but it had an end. A definite end before Shisui’s end. It doesn’t matter to Shisui that Itachi would never want to have sex with him. Everything is perfect as a relationship could be without that, but the word terminal meant things and wear you down into the dirt before your time.

“Oh.” Shisui leans his cheek on Itachi’s hair. He brushes at it, catching his fingers in the smooth silk of it. “Oh, okay.”

Itachi chuckles. “It was cold. He took pity on the sick and dying and let me crawl in bed with him. It wasn’t the same…” Itachi trails off. He coughed weakly and curled his hands into Shisui’s shirt.

“So I was better?” Shisui coaxes, dropping the words softly into Itachi’s ear. He receives a laugh. Itachi pushes into him, and they both drop back onto the bed. Itachi feels like bones and a heart beat and heat. Nothing more.

“You are always the best,” Itachi affirms in a small voice.

“Itachi brought to you by the letter L,” Shisui teases as he pulls the blankets up over them. 

“Which stands for love and longing and longevity,” Itachi returns. “And the color blue.”

“And the number two.”

“Because two is always better than one.”


	4. Side Story: Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is finger porn.

What Shisui regrets is not the mounds of stupid things he’s said over his life. What he regrets is his silence. The time he decided not to fight it out with Itachi, but to instead withdraw. The time he stopped texting angrily or calling insistently and let the miles between them speak for him. 

Before preparing to go abroad to study, Shisui made Itachi promise up and down to be careful. He forbid Itachi from going to Sasuke’s stupid soccer tournament, and Itachi smiled and agreed. He went anyway. He stood out in the wet and damp all day and got sick. He ended up in the hospital. Shisui was choked with rage and frustration and despair. Itachi had always--always been sick, but this time it hit Shisui not as something that would just always happen, but something wrong. Something they needed to fix. Something that needed to stop, before Itachi was lost.

It was a lot more than just that. They’ve been constants since they met shortly after Itachi’s birth. They were hundreds of miles apart for the first time. Shisui allowed himself to fall into silence and buried himself in strangers and strange sights and nothing to do with long haired boys with dark lashes and slow, brilliant smiles that held the meaning of the world in them.

As he walks through the airport, finally on his home soil, he realizes there is no one to pick him up. He’s already been chewing over the stupidity of his silence the entire plane ride back, but he hasn’t worked up the nerve to send Itachi any kind of message, or unblock his numbers and emails. Shisui swallows, shifting his bag over to his other shoulder and shaking his head. He’ll need a cab. Maybe a hotel? He and Itachi have been sharing a place. They kept talking about separating, mostly so Itachi could more easily deal with Sasuke’s problems, but it hasn’t happened. well, now it can happen. A nice clean break.

It doesn’t hurt to think those words, because Shisui doesn’t really know how to imagine a life without Itachi. Itachi drives so many things in his life. Shisui orders so many things around his cousin and his capricious health. He never has steady relationships because of Itachi. He’s dedicated hours to hospital bedside vigils, picked up dozens of prescriptions, driven Itachi to the ER countless times. Really, Itachi is such a _burden_ , physically and emotionally. There will always be the niggling “is this it?” thought in the back of his mind, chasing at his heels as he watches Itachi breath or takes his pulse or checks to make sure Itachi’s not dehydrated. Now there will be no need for that. 

Even if Shisui crawls back, there is no guarantee Itachi will accept him. Shisui has never simply stopped speaking to Itachi, and he has no idea what his cousin’s reaction to that will be. He’s afraid to see what Itachi’s sense of justice will demand as proper punishment, or how he will interpret silence. Shisui expects no small part of scorn from Itachi. Hurt. Defensive rejection. He doesn’t know how to feel himself. Relieved or sad or indifferent because nothing lasts forever, and they both knew it would all end badly. They just both assumed it would end in death.

He needs to stop standing and staring and find a cab already. Shisui turns his head to look for one when someone touches two fingers to the side of his palm, the gentlest of touches. Shisui’s heart jumps high, a swelling thrill rushing through him. It’s not adrenaline from a strange touch. It’s something else entirely, and Shisui takes a huge, gulping breath as his heart pounds and his skin became electric. Super sensitive so that he can feel the currents of air brushing his cheeks.

A slightly smaller hand pushes into his after a moment, the back of the hand rubbing against his palm. Knuckles rub the inside of his wrist. Nails gently rasp against his skin as fingers draw down to push through his own. Calloused, warm skin brushes against his, bony fingers finding their place between his in the backwards hold as if they have been made to fit there. Shsiui feels like he can’t breath, chest tight. Shisui’s fingers curl back to touch the soft palm on reflex, his body responding as his mind trips along several thoughts behind. Fingers close around his tightly, digging Shisui’s nails into the soft palm with a burn scar from an accident with a fire cracker. Shisui’s arm is covered in goosebumps. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and his heart flutters instead of pounding. His mouth is dry.

A forehead drops to the back of his shoulder. A hot breath expelled, eating through his thin shirt. Shisui shivers. A face presses to his back. Shisui rocks back into the pressure almost unconsciously, reaching back just as a hand sneaks around, grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him back with a genuine ferocity and a noise between a laugh and a sob. 

“Oh gods,” Shisui almost groans. Itachi kisses the back of Shisui’s neck, hot breath and rough lips, his bangs brushing Shisui’s skin. Shisui jerks his hand away from Itachi’s gripping fingers, catching Itachi’s hand again as it catches in the fabric of his shirt. he feels like he’s going to get a broken finger, but Itachi’s face is now pressed into his neck, and he can feel the hollow heart beat of his cousin pounding into his back. He can feel the tension in Itachi’s body as he holds on like he’s never going to let Shisui go.

People are staring. Whispering. Wondering. Shisui tries to pry Itachi’s fingers from his shirt and Itachi somehow shoves closer.

“Get off.” The words are breathless. His first words to Itachi in more than three months, and Itachi’s hands slide off of him like water. He leaves an aching coldness as he steps away from Shisui, who whips around, dropping his duffel to face Itachi. Itachi stands in a too-big hoodie now over his hands. His cheeks look hollow, his eyes dark. His hair has grown, bangs touching his jawline now. He hasn’t changed much, just lost some weight, or maybe that is an illusion of the baggy clothes. Words bottle up in Shisui’s throat. Emotions clammer in him--shouting and screaming as Itachi just stares at him, an odd hesitance in the way his fingers tuck themselves away inside his too long sleeves.

Shisui grabs Itachi’s hoodie, his over dramatic response to Itachi’s subtle greeting. He can see Itachi’s eyes widen in panic before it all blurs together. Shisui hesitates one moment, sense trying to take over, and then he kisses Itachi on the mouth, which is cold.

Itachi immediately slams both fists into Shisui’s chest. Shisui stumbles back, shocked and a little hurt as Itachi makes a few jerky motions with his hands, then rolls his eyes heavenward and makes the most godsawful croaking noise imaginable.

“Oh, you’re sick…” Shisui wipes at his mouth, as if that will remove the contamination. Itachi rolls his eyes again and kneels to pick up Shisui’s duffel, shouldering it easily despite his frailty. Itachi bumps into Shisui’s side, somehow inserting himself under Shisui’s arm and steering them off to the left, towards the parking lots. Shisui knows, logically, that he should offer an apology. He should drag everything out and explain it and ask for forgiveness, but as Itachi mutely nudges him this way and that, and Shisui curls an arm around Itachi’s shoulders, all the words in the world just seem inadequate.

Shisui find them to say later, pouring out everything he’d left unsaid in the last three months until he is almost as hoarse as Itachi, and Itachi just listens in rapt attention, like a man starved. Shisui will always regret those months of silence. He will always regret intimating that he could leave this. That he doesn’t need as Itachi did. That somehow he can willingly divorce himself from this.

This--Itachi lying mostly naked next to him because of a fever. His hands tangling in Itachi’s hair as they both fall asleep to the sound of each other’s breathing. The absent touches and caresses and kisses that are old friends and like a dance of random, but well known steps as they drift into sleep slowly. The way he can make Itachi smile, shiver, grimace, or even laugh with nothing more than touch. The way Itachi can make Shisui feel like his skin is on fire.

How, and why, would anyone ever leave this?

Because one day it will be taken from him.

One day Itachi will be ripped from his hands, and silence will be all that remains. And maybe, one day, that small truth will be enough to drive him mad. To drive him away. To force him to insulate himself against the disaster to come so it doesn’t utterly destroy him.

But, that day is not today as they regain their easiness after a night together, the silence forgiven and forgotten by Itachi, all the distance Shisui had created with three months of resentment and anger and silence wiped away in an instant by a two fingered touch.


End file.
